Advantages of two hard drives?

[jeffgson]

I'm not sure if I should spend money on a 2nd HD.

On the one hand, even though my current HD is only 30 GB, I don't store much, and consequently seldom have more than 12 to 14 GB on it at any time. I'm not big into any memory consuming apps or data like games, DVDs, MP3s, etc.. I do have a lot of .pdf files, but since I only refer to them on occasion I back them up to CD and then erase them from my HD. With a 2nd HD I wouldn't back docs up to CD as often.

On the other hand, I would have the security of a 2nd bootable HD in case my primary HD won't boot for any reason. I've already experienced the joy of having a HD crash once; that being among all the other reasons a HD won't boot.

What other pros and cons are there to adding a 2nd HD? I've found a 40 GB WD HD for $55 w/ shipping, so cost isn't a serious issue.


P.S. - I might as well ask this now because the answer isn't obvious t me as a beginner. My Shuttle AN-35N Ultra mobo has two IDE connectors, but the manual says that this provides support for up to four IDE devices. My primary HD is plugged into one and my CDRW into the other connector now. How would a 2nd HD be connected?

My Rig

 

[MichaelD]

You've already hit on some of the very important advantages of having another physical HD in your system.

- File backup
- Storage space
- Peace of mind knowing you could be back up and running quickly should something blow up

Here's what I do with my main rig. I install the OS, all the drivers, patches, security updates and anti virus software. I use Norton Ghost to then ghost an image (an exact duplicate) of my OS partition to a partition on another physical HD.

If my main OS partition goes tits-up or gets corrupted, I can use Ghost to put that brand-new image right back on there. The main pointis that it takes a whole 15 minutes to do, I don't need any driver discs (save for a bootable floppy with Ghost on it) and *POOF* Im up and running again.

I also keep current backups of My Documents and my email on another physical HD as well.

 

[3chordcharlie]

having a second hard drive is also great if you do video encoding/editing, or any other large file copying on your computer.

 

[tdawg]

Originally posted by: jeffgson
P.S. - I might as well ask this now because the answer isn't obvious t me as a beginner. My Shuttle AN-35N Ultra mobo has two IDE connectors, but the manual says that this provides support for up to four IDE devices. My primary HD is plugged into one and my CDRW into the other connector now. How would a 2nd HD be connected?

Each IDE cable has three connectors on it. One connects to the motherboard's primary or secondary IDE connector. The other two connect to IDE drives (HD, CD, DVD, etc), one as a master drive and one as a slave drive. Each IDE connector supports two devices in a master/slave relationship, so two IDE connectors supports a total of four devices.

Hope this makes sense.

~tdawg

 

[VisableAssassin]

I run three drives
one 160gb for my OS,games apss etc etc
second 160gb for storage and back up.
and my third 80gb is for useing as a swap drive for Kazaa lite,soulseek etc.
the longest part reformat is the windows installation itself.

 

[jagec]

you can use a second hard drive for backups, and gain a small performance boost by having your swap file on a seperate physical drive than your OS.

 

[jeffgson]

Originally posted by: tdawg

Each IDE cable has three connectors on it. One connects to the motherboard's primary or secondary IDE connector. The other two connect to IDE drives (HD, CD, DVD, etc), one as a master drive and one as a slave drive. Each IDE connector supports two devices in a master/slave relationship, so two IDE connectors supports a total of four devices.

Hope this makes sense.

~tdawg

I see now that you've pointed it out.

 

[jeffgson]

Relating to what was mentioned above:

Do I really want to copy the contents of my primary drive to my slave drive? The data that's stored on the primary drive already doesn't need stored twice. And if I copy my OS and boot sector to my slave, I'm transferring any errors or corrupt files that alrady exist on my primary drive, instead of doing a clean install from scratch.

And again, another question relating to the last. What does anyone think about my partitioning the slave and loading Win XP Pro on one partition, and Linux on the other? If I want the maximum in reliability, I'll be able to boot to Win XP on drive A or B, or Linux on Drive B. And if I'm paranoid about any files I'm downloading that may exploit Windows vulnerabilities or contain viruses, etc., I can download them to the Linux partition where they probably won't do any harm.

Comments?

P.S. - This is the deal I was going to buy. WD 440BB HD . Again, any comments?

 

[0roo0roo]

RAID?

just remember, something spinning at thousands of rpm will eventually die